Fathers Rights Issues
There are a number of issues which drive the participants in the fathers' rights movement:
- Residence with the children is rarely given to the father after divorce or separation.
- Shared residence (and shared parenting) is seldom used as an expedient to resolve family child residency disputes, frequently resulting in fathers being marginalised and unable to perform effectively in their capacity as fathers.
- When contact is denied, the courts frequently do not enforce their own orders.
- Whereas mothers get parental responsibility automatically, fathers only do so if they were married to the mother or signed the birth certificate.
- Fathers are obliged to pay means tested child support irrespective of whether they are allowed to see their children, and with no account taken of the mother's household's income.
- Parental leave favours mothers, paternity leave is substantially less than maternity leave
- Contact centre places are hard to obtain because of inadequate funding and at the same time their use is frequently demanded unreasonably - resulting in children being unnecessarily deprived of the love and care of their non-resident parent.
- When a father makes representations in court to see his child when this is being obstructed by the mother, adversarial court proceedings against the mother are inevitably the cause of further conflict. If a court can determine that a child should see its father, this could be done without reference to the mother, who may be deemed irrelevant to the proceedings in cases of implacable hostility.
Read more about this topic: Fathers' Rights Movement In The United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the words fathers, rights and/or issues:
“Contrary to all we hear about women and their empty-nest problem, it may be fathers more often than mothers who are pained by the children’s imminent or actual departure—fathers who want to hold back the clock, to keep the children in the home for just a little longer. Repeatedly women compare their own relief to their husband’s distress”
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (20th century)
“To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled—because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The “universal moments” of child rearing are in fact nothing less than a confrontation with the most basic problems of living in society: a facing through one’s children of all the conflicts inherent in human relationships, a clarification of issues that were unresolved in one’s own growing up. The experience of child rearing not only can strengthen one as an individual but also presents the opportunity to shape human relationships of the future.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)